‘That’s so…’
For a moment the two men fell silent, their faces solemn in the flickering light from the fire. Before either could speak again, the door at the far end of the room opened and Ben’s mother entered, carrying a tray. She set it down on a footstool beside the open fire, then leaned across to take something from a bowl on the mantelpiece and sprinkle it on the burning logs.
At once the room was filled with the sweet, fresh smell of mint.
The T’ang gave a gentle laugh, delighted, and took a long, deep breath.
Ben watched his mother turn from the fire, drawing her long dark hair back from her face, smiling. ‘I’ve brought fresh ch’a,’ she said simply, then lifted the tray and brought it across to them.
As she set it down the T’ang stood and, reaching across, put his hand over hers, preventing her from lifting the kettle.
‘Please. I would be honoured if you sat a while with us and shared the ch’a.’
She hesitated then, smiling, did as he bid her; watching the strange sight of a T’ang pouring ch’a for a commoner.
‘Here,’ he said, offering her the first bowl. ‘Ch’a from the dragon’s well.’
The T’ang’s words were a harmless play on the name of the Longjing ch’a, but for Ben they seemed to hold a special meaning. He looked at his mother, seeing how she smiled self-consciously and lowered her head, for a moment the youthful look of her reminding him terribly of Meg – of how Meg would be a year or two from now. Then he looked back at the T’ang, standing there, pouring a second bowl for his father.
Ben frowned. The very presence of the T’ang in the room seemed suddenly quite strange. His silks, his plaited hair, his very foreignness seemed out of place amongst the low oak beams and sturdy yeoman furniture. That contrast, that curious juxtaposition of man and room, brought home to Ben how strange this world of theirs truly was. A world tipped wildly from its natural balance.
The dragon’s well. It made him think of fire and darkness, of untapped potency. Is that what’s missing from our world? he asked himself. Have we done with fire and darkness?
And you, Ben? Will you drink of the dragon’s well?’
Li Shai Tung looked across at him, smiling; but behind the smile – beyond it, in some darker, less accessible place – lay a deep disquiet.
Flames danced in the glass of each eye, flickered wet and evanescent on the dark surface of his vision. But where was the fire on the far side of the glass? Where the depths that made of Man a man? In word and gesture, the T’ang was great and powerful – a T’ang, unmistakably a king among men – but he had lost contact with the very thing that had made – had shaped – his outer form. He had denied his inner self once too often and now the well was capped, the fire doused.
He stared at the T’ang, wondering if he knew what he had become; if the doubt that he professed was as thorough, as all-inclusive as it ought to be. Whether, when he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he saw beyond the glass into that other place behind the eyes. Ben shivered. No. It could not be so. For if it were the man himself would crumble. Words would fail, gestures grow hesitant. No. This T’ang might doubt what they had done, but not what he was. That was innate – was bred into his bones. He would die before he doubted himself.
The smile remained, unchallenged, genuine; the offered bowl awaited him.
‘Well, Ben?’ his father asked, turning to him. ‘Will you take a bowl with us?’
Li Shai Tung leaned forward, offering the boy the bowl, conscious that he had become the focus of the child’s strange intensity; of the intimidating ferocity of his stare.
Hal was right. Ben was not like other children. There was something wild in his nature; some part of him that remained untamed, unsocialized. When he sat there at table it was as if he held himself in check. There was such stillness in him that when he moved it was like something dead had come alive again. Yet he was more alive – more vividly alive – than anyone the T’ang had ever met.
As he handed Ben the bowl he almost expected to receive some kind of shock – a violent discharge of the child’s unnatural energy – through the medium of the bowl. But there was nothing. Only his wild imagining.
The T’ang looked down, thoughtful. Ben Shepherd was a breed of one. He had none of those small refinements that fitted a man for the company of his fellows. He had no sense of give and take; no idea of the concessions one made for the sake of social comfort. His stare was uncompromising, almost proprietorial. As if all he saw was his.
Yes, Li Shai Tung thought, smiling inwardly. You should be a T’ang, Ben Shepherd, for you’ll find it hard to pass muster as a simple man.
He lifted his bowl and sipped, thinking back to earlier that afternoon. They had been out walking in the garden when Hal had suggested he go with him and see Ben’s room.
He had stood in the centre of the tiny, cluttered upstairs room, looking at the paintings that covered the wall above the bed.
Some were lifelike studies of the Domain. Lifelike, at least, but for the dark, unfocused figures who stood in the shadows beneath the trees on the far side of the water. Others were more abstract, depicting strange distortions of the real. Twins figured largely in these latter compositions; one twin quite normal – strong and healthy – the other twisted out of shape, the eyes blank, the mouth open as if in pain. They were disturbing, unusually disturbing, yet their technical accomplishment could not be questioned.
‘These are good, Hal. Very good indeed. The boy has talent.’
Hal Shepherd gave a small smile, then came alongside him. ‘He’d be pleased to hear you say that. But if you think those are good, look at this.’
The T’ang took the folder from him and opened it. Inside was a single ultra-thin sheet of what seemed like pure black plastic. He turned it in his hands and then laughed. ‘What is it?’
‘Here,’ Shepherd indicated a viewer on the table by the window, then drew the blind down. ‘Lay it in the tray there, then flick that switch.’
Li Shai Tung placed the sheet down in the viewer. ‘Does it matter which way up?’
‘Yes and no. You’ll see.’
The T’ang flicked the switch. At once the tank-like cage of the viewer was filled with colour. It was a hologram. A portrait of Hal Shepherd’s wife, Beth.
‘He did this?’
Shepherd nodded. ‘There are one hundred and eighty cross-sectional layers of information. Ninety horizontal, ninety vertical. He hand drew each sheet and then compressed them. It’s his own technique. He invented it.’
‘Hand drew… ?’
And from memory. Beth wouldn’t sit for him, you see. She said she was too busy. But he did it anyway.’
Li Shai Tung shook his head slowly. ‘It’s astonishing, Hal. It’s like a camera image of her.’
‘You haven’t seen the half of it. Wait…’ Shepherd switched the hologram off, then reached in and lifted the flexible plate up. He turned it and set it down again. ‘Please…’
The T’ang reached out and pressed the switch. Again the viewing cage was filled with colour. But this time the image was different.
The hologram of Hal Shepherd was far from flattering. The flesh was far cruder, much rougher than the reality, the cheeks ruddier. The hair was thicker, curlier, the eyebrows heavier and darker. The nose was thick and fleshy, the ears pointed, the eyes larger, darker. The lips were more sensual than the original, almost licentious. They seemed to sneer.
Shepherd moved closer and looked down into the viewer. ‘There’s something of the satyr about it. Something elemental.’
The T’ang turned his head and looked at him, not understanding the allusion.
Shepherd laughed. ‘It was a Greek thing, Shai Tung. In their mythology satyrs were elementary spirits of the mountains and the forests. Part-goat, part-man. Cloven-hooved, thickly-haired, sensual and lascivious.’
Li Shai Tung stared at the urbane, highly sophisticated man standing at his side and laughed briefly, bemused that S
hepherd could see himself in that brutal portrait. ‘I can see a slight likeness. Something in the eyes, the shape of the head, but…’
Shepherd shook his head slowly. He was staring at the hologram intently. ‘No. Look at it, Shai Tung. Look hard at it. He sees me clearly. My inner self
Li Shai Tung shivered. ‘The gods help us that our sons should see us thus!’
Shepherd turned and looked at him. ‘Why? Why should we fear that, old friend? We know what we are. Men. Part mind, part animal. Why should we be afraid of that?’
The T’ang pointed to the image. ‘Men, yes. But men like that? You really see yourself in such an image, Hal?’
Shepherd smiled. ‘It’s not the all of me, I know, but it’s a part. An important part.’
Li Shai Tung shrugged – the slightest movement of his shoulders – then looked back at the image. ‘But why is the other as it is? Why aren’t both alike?’
‘Ben has a wicked sense of humour.’
Again the T’ang did not understand, but this time Shepherd made no attempt to enlighten him.
Li Shai Tung studied the hologram a moment longer then turned from it, looking all about him. ‘He gets such talent from you, Hal.’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘I never had a tenth of his ability. Anyway, even the word “talent” is unsatisfactory. What he has is genius. In that he’s like his great-great-grandfather.’
The T’ang smiled at that, remembering his father’s tales of Augustus Shepherd’s eccentricity. ‘Perhaps. But let us hope that that is all he has inherited.’
He knew at once that he had said the wrong thing. Or, if not the wrong thing, then something that touched upon a sensitive area.
‘The resemblance is more than casual.’
The T’ang lowered his head slightly, willing to drop the matter at once, but Shepherd seemed anxious to explain. ‘Ben’s schizophrenic too, you see. Oh, nothing as bad as Augustus. But it creates certain incongruities in his character.’
Li Shai Tung looked back at the pictures above the bed with new understanding. ‘But from what you’ve said the boy is healthy enough.’
‘Even happy, I’d say. Most of the time. He has bouts of it, you understand. Then we either dose him up heavily or leave him alone.’
Shepherd leaned across and switched off the viewer, then lifted the thin black sheet and slipped it back into the folder. ‘They used to think schizophrenia was a simple malfunction of the brain; an imbalance in certain chemicals – dopamine, glutamic acid and gamma-amino-butyric acid. Drugs like largactil, modecate, disipal, priadel and haloperidol were used, mainly as tranquillizers. But they simply kept the thing in check and had the side-effect of enlarging the dopamine system. Worst of all, at least as far as Ben is concerned, they damp down the creative faculty.’
The T’ang frowned. Medicine, like all else, was based on traditional Han ways. The development of Western drugs, like Western ideas of progress, had been abandoned when Tsao Ch’un had built his City. Many such drugs were, in fact, illicit now. One heard of them, normally, only in the context of addiction – something that was rife in the lowest levels of the City. Nowadays all serious conditions were diagnosed before the child was born and steps taken either to correct them or to abort the foetus. It thus surprised him, first to hear that Ben’s illness had not been diagnosed beforehand, second that he had even considered taking drugs to keep the illness in check.
‘He has not taken these drugs, I hope.’
Shepherd met his eyes. ‘Not only has but still does. Except when he’s working.’
The T’ang sighed deeply. ‘You should have told me, Hal. I shall arrange for my herbalist to call on Ben within the next few days.’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘I thank you, Shai Tung. Your kindness touches me. But it would do no good.’
‘No good?’ The T’ang frowned, puzzled. ‘But there are numerous sedatives – things to calm the spirit and restore the body’s yin-yang balance. Good, healthy remedies, not these… drugs!’
‘I know, Shai Tung, and again I thank you for your concern. But Ben would have none of it. Oh, I can see him now – “Dragon bones and oyster shells!” he’d say scornfully. “What good are they against this affliction?”’
The T’ang looked down, disturbed. In this matter he could not insist. The birthright of the Shepherds made them immune from the laws that governed others. If Ben took drugs to maintain his mental stability there was little he, Li Shai Tung, could do about it. Even so, he could not stop himself from feeling it was wrong. He changed the subject.
‘Is he a good son, Hal?’
Shepherd laughed. ‘He is the best of sons, Shai Tung. Like Li Yuan, his respect is not a matter of rote, as it is with some of this new generation, but a deep-rooted thing. And as you’ve seen, it stems from a thorough knowledge of his father.’
The T’ang nodded, leaving his doubts unexpressed. ‘Good. But you are right, Hal. These past few years have seen a sharp decline in morality. The li – the rites – they mean little now. The young mouth the old words but they mean nothing by them. Their respect is an empty shell. We are fortunate, you and I, that we have good sons.’
‘Indeed. Though Ben can be a pompous, intolerant little sod at times. He has no time for fools. And little enough for cleverness, if you see what I mean. He loathes his machine-tutor, for instance.’
Li Shai Tung raised his eyebrows. ‘That surprises me, Hal. I would have thought he cherished knowledge. All this…’ he looked about him at the books and paintings and machines ‘…it speaks of a love of knowledge.’
Shepherd smiled strangely. ‘Perhaps you should talk to him yourself, Shai Tung.’
The T’ang smiled. ‘Perhaps I should.’
Now, watching the boy across the length of the dinner table, he understood.
‘What do you think, Ben? Do you think the time has come to fight our enemies?’
Unexpectedly, the boy laughed. ‘That depends on whether you know who or what your enemies are.’
The T’ang lifted his chin slightly. ‘I think I have a fair idea.’
Ben met his eyes again, fixing that same penetrating stare on him. ‘Maybe. But you must first ask yourself what exactly you are fighting against. When you think of your enemies your first thought is of certain identifiable men and groups of men, is that not so?’
The T’ang nodded. ‘That is so, Ben. I know my enemies. I can put names to them and faces.’
‘There, you see. And you think that by waging war against them you will resolve this present situation.’ Ben set his bowl down and sat back, his every gesture momentarily – though none but Ben himself realized it – the mirror image of the T’ang’s. ‘With respect, Li Shai Tung, you are wrong.’
The T’ang laughed fiercely, enjoying the exchange. ‘You think their ideology will outlive them? Is that it, Ben? If it were not so false in the first place, I would agree with you. But their sole motivation is greed. They don’t really want change. They want power.’
Ben shook his head. ‘Ah, but you’re still thinking of specific men. Powerful men, admittedly, even men of influence, but only men. Men won’t bring Chung Kuo down, only what’s inside Man. You should free yourself from thinking of them. To you they seem the greatest threat, but they’re not. They’re the scum on the surface of the well. And the well is deep.’
Li Shai Tung took a deep breath. ‘With respect, Ben, in this you are wrong. Your argument presupposes that it does not matter who rules – that things will remain as they are whoever is in power. But that’s not so. Their ideology is false, but, forgive me, they are Hung Mao.’
Across from him Hal Shepherd smiled, but he was clearly embarrassed. It was more than two decades since he had taken offence at the term – a term used all the while in court, where the Han were predominant and the few Caucasians treated as honorary Han – yet here, in the Domain, he felt the words incongruous, almost – surprisingly – insulting.
‘They have no sense of harmony,’ continued th
e T’ang, unaware. ‘No sense of li. Any change they brought would not be for the good. They are men of few principles. They would carve the world up into principalities and then there would be war again. Endless war. As it was before.’
There was the faintest of smiles on Ben’s lips. ‘You forget your own history, Li Shai Tung. No dynasty can last forever. The wheel turns. Change comes, whether you will it or no. It is the way of Mankind. All of Mankind, even the Han.’
‘So it may have been, but things are different now. The wheel no longer turns. We have done with history.’
Ben laughed. ‘But you cannot stop the world from turning!’
He was about to say more but his mother touched his arm. She had sat there, perfectly still and silent, watching the fire while they talked, her dark hair hiding her face. Now she smiled and got up, excusing herself.
‘Perhaps you men would like to go through into the study. I’ve lit the fire there.’
Shepherd looked to the T’ang, who gave the slightest nod of agreement before standing and bowing to his hostess. Again he thanked her warmly for the meal and her hospitality, then, when she had gone, went before Shepherd and his son into the other room.
‘Brandy?’ Shepherd turned from the wall cabinet, holding the decanter up. The T’ang was usually abstemious, but tonight his mood seemed different. He seemed to want to talk – to encourage talk. As if there were some real end to all this talking: some problem which, though he hadn’t come to it, he wished to address. Something he found difficult; that worried him profoundly.
The T’ang hesitated, then smiled. ‘Why not? After all, a man ought to indulge himself now and then.’
Shepherd poured the T’ang a fingernail’s measure of the dark liquid and handed him the ancient bowled glass. Then he turned to his son. ‘Ben?’
Ben smiled almost boyishly. Are you sure mother won’t mind?’
Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series Page 4